Jailed activist, LGBTQ rights advocate among 20 women honored by Harvard Law School

Atlanta, GA, March 12, 2019: Two Indian women, jailed civil rights activist Sudha Bharadwaj and LGBTQ rights advocate Menaka Guruswamy, are among the women featured in the 6th Harvard Law International Women’s Day Portrait Exhibit.

The portrait exhibit
showcases the contributions of women around the world to the areas of law and
policy.

“The honorees—each of
whom were nominated by HLS students, faculty or staff—are powerful voices in
their respective fields, whether they are sitting on a high court bench,
standing in front of a classroom, or marching in the streets,” according to the
exhibit website.

Sudha Bharadwaj is a trade unionist, a civil rights activist against land acquisition from Chhattisgarh. She was arrested last year by the Pune police on suspicion of being involved in Maoist terror activities.

On 26 October 2018, a
Pune Sessions Court rejected the bail application of Bharadwaj. She is
currently in prison.

Sudha was born an
American citizen, to Konkani Brahmin parents Krishna and Ranganath
Bharadwaj, who were pursuing their PhD in Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, US, according to the activist’s Wikipedia page. Bharadwaj returned
to India at the age of 11, gave up her US citizenship at the age of 18, and
joined the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, to study mathematics,
completing the five-year integrated course in 1984.

Dr. Menaka Guruswamy is BR Ambedkar Research Scholar and Lecturer at
Columbia Law School. She also practices law before the Supreme Court of India.

Dr Menaka Guruswamy

Dr Guruswamy was the only woman in the all-male team who fought in the Supreme Court against Section 377 to decriminalize homosexuality.

Dr. Guruswamy has practiced law in New York, as an associate
at Davis Polk & Wardwell. She has advised the United Nations Development
Fund, New York and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), New York and UNICEF
South Sudan on various aspects of International Human Rights Law and has also
supported the constitution-making process in Nepal.

She focusses on large constitutional rights claims and has
successfully brought reform of the bureaucracy in the country, and defended
federal legislation that mandates that all private schools admit disadvantaged
children. She is amicus curiae appointed by the Supreme Court in a case
concerning 1528 alleged extra-judicial killings by the military and security
personnel.

Georgia’s rising Democratic star, Stacey Abrams and lawyer
Gloria Alred are among the other honorees.

NRIPulse is an Atlanta (Georgia, US) based monthly newspaper and portal that caters to the needs and interests of the Indian-American community in particular, and other members of the growing South Asian population in and around Georgia.
NRI Pulse has been recognized by the Limca Book of Records, 2010 edition, as the first newspaper to be published and edited by a Non-Resident Indian woman in the World!